The Remote Island

Background Wizards, You Shall Not Pass [VIDEO]

Posted by Jake Kalish

Great piece by Jodie Burke in the LA Times Saturday about how the recession and increased unemployment rates have led to huge lines of people trying to get work as television and film extras - or "background artists", as they say. However, the recession has also led to studios tightening up, and there being less work for these background artists. Not to mention the fact that the number of scripted shows on TV which could even hire these folks decreases every year, giving way to "reality" programming, which has no use for background artists.

And then another great piece in the New York Times yesterday by Sarah Toland, an editor in a "protracted period of unemployment", about her utterly miserable experience working as an extra on the new Cupid, which premiered on ABC last week.

Great pieces, but depressing. So, to counterbalance the doom and gloom, we've included video of probably the funniest scene from the show Extras, in which Sir Ian McKellen explains acting in the most obvious terms possible to flummoxed former extra Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais). Now all of us can laugh again...

PREVIOUSLY:

No Hiring, Only Firing In The TV Industry

"Real Housewives": Real Broke

Kathy Cox Of "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader": A Really Good Person In A Really Bad Economy

 

 


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About Jake Kalish

Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights http://www.amazon.com/Santa-vs-Satan-Compendium-Imaginary/dp/0307406709/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208807460&sr=8-1

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    Lindy Parker has worked as a ghostwriter, editor, dance instructor and a purveyor of dreams, one beer at a time. She loves Charles Dickens and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and also, straight-to-video releases with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. It's possible she reads more teen fiction than she should. She hails from Los Angeles, her hometown and soul mate, but she lives in Brooklyn, the fling she'll never forget.

    Olivia Purnell left Ohio for sunny Los Angeles; then found that she couldn’t ignore New York City’s call, and brought herself to Brooklyn where she has worked with GenArt, BlackBook, the School of American Ballet, and finished an M.A. in Creative Writing from N.Y.U. She loves one-liners with sting and hates the stench of the subway in the summer. That said, she can’t get enough of either.

    Jake Kalish is a freelance journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in Details, Maxim, Stuff, New York Press, Spin, Blender, Men's Fitness, Poets and Writers, and Playboy, among other publications. He is also the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights.

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    Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

    Nicole Ankowski has lived in Ohio, Oakland, and on the high plains of South Dakota, but is now proud to call Brooklyn home. She wrote for alternative weekly papers in the first two states, and tried to learn Lakota in the last. (The vowels can be tricky.) She just earned her MFA in Creative Writing and has been published in Beeswax literary journal. She is unable to resist good writing or bad TV.

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